Welcome to the Careers Homepage

Do you want a career that is exciting and varied? Do you want to make a real difference to the lives of people all over the world? How about using your mathematics or statistical knowledge to help develop and trial lifesaving medicines?

Then working as a statistician or programmer in medical research could be for you! Click on the links below to find out more…
To learn more about clinical trials and the basic statistical concepts involved, please visit our Schools/Education page.

Job Roles

Find out about different job roles: Role of a Medical Statistician, Role of a Statistical, Programmer, Job Requirements, Job Prospects, Perks of working in Medical Research

Student Placements

Placement and internship opportunities for students are available within medical research and are commonly advertised directly on company websites. For inspiration we have compiled a list below of companies who offer placement schemes.

Medical Statistician Apprenticeship

Find out about the medical statistician apprenticeship.

PSI Careers Event

This event is aimed at students with an interest in the analysis of data within pharmaceuticals, healthcare and/or medical research.

Other Careers Events

A listing of careers events run by other organisations.

University Courses

To work as a medical statistician, most companies require at least an MSc in Statistics, or an MSc with a significant statistical component, or a relevant subject. To work as a statistical programmer, most companies require at least a BSc in Mathematics or Statistics or a relevant subject.  Exact educational requirements can vary by company, so we would always recommend checking the job description for each role to confirm what qualifications are required.

Free Student Membership

PSI membership is free to all students & teachers and is valid from January – December (renewal every January)

Career Progression

If you’ve already made the choice to work as a statistician or statistical programmer within medical research, then you might be wondering what career paths will be open to you in the future.

How to Find a Job

Finding a job in any industry is daunting, not just medical research. This page aims to take you through the process including general advice, what to expect when you apply, and current vacancies. To find out more about life as a medical statistician or programmer and what to expect in your career, please visit our Job Roles page or Career Progression page.

Introduction to the Pharmaceutical Industry

The scope of medical research is vast and is also a successful and growing professional environment. It rises to the varying challenges of the health care industry, not just research, development and manufacturing of new treatments and devices, but also improving the effectiveness of medicines in a broader way.

Statisticians and statistical programmers work on designing, analysing and interpreting clinical trials which are conducted to progress the research, development, manufacture and marketing of products for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases.

The medical research industry is made up of a wide range of companies - large and small, local, national and international, some with manufacturing and marketing facilities, others concentrating solely on research and development - as well as Contract Research Organisations (CROs) and specialised Clinical Trials Units (CTUs).

CROs frequently provide their research and development services to pharmaceutical companies and they often work in tandem with the manufacturing companies to achieve product approval from the regulatory authorities around the world. There are strong links between CROs and pharmaceutical companies and many within the industry work on cross-functional and cross-company teams that encompass both Pharmaceutical and CRO colleagues working in partnership with one another.

CTUs are also an essential component of medical research, by designing, conducting and analysing clinical trials, in order to determine whether a particular therapy warrants further investigation. They often work in collaboration with pharmaceutical companies, academic partners and charity organisations.

Upcoming Events

PSI VisSIG Wonderful Wednesdays

Our monthly webinar explores examples of innovative data visualisations relevant to our day to day work. Each month a new dataset is provided from a clinical trial or other relevant example, and participants are invited to submit a graphic that communicates interesting and relevant characteristics of the data.

PSI Training Course: R for SAS Users

R is quickly gaining popularity within the pharmaceutical industry due to it being a very powerful object-orientated language, and is able to produce analyses and high quality graphics. This will be a hands-on interactive course and will utilise the RStudio Cloud development environment.

PSI VisSIG Webinar: Grammar of Graphics - theory to implementation

In this talk we'll introduce the Grammar of Graphics, which allows you to compose graphs by combining independent components, and the implementation of this theory in R -- the ggplot2 package.

PSI Webinar: Oncology Ted Talks (with interaction)

The format of this event will include Ted Talks by all of our speakers with the opportunity for us to have a discussion together after each of the presentations.

PSI EIWG Webinar: Estimands in Oncology - How and Why

A year on after the final ICH E9 estimands addendum was published, we bring estimands to life. Members of the Estimands in Oncology special interest group will describe how the estimand framework provides a common language to describe the diversity of patient journeys and why it is important to address the right question in clinical trials.

PSI Training Course: Data Monitoring Committees (DMCs)

This course will cover the essentials of DMC set up (roles and responsibilities, DMC charter, practical considerations), as well as discussing DMC case studies and the role of DMCs in adaptive trials and during the pandemic. In addition, there will be an interactive DMC workshop.

Latest Jobs

Biostatistician Project Leader

As a statistician in the Biostatistics and Programming Department, you will be responsible for the methodological and statistical aspects of projects in early clinical development in order to optimize the early development plan and ensure its coherence.

Director of Statistics

As a Director of Statistics, you will be accountable for guiding statisticians in their work, performing senior review of documentation and output deliveries, providing oversight and advising on best practices approach to statistics for clinical trials.